can someone explain "actualism" to me...

[xyyz]

i was doing some general reading... and i came across the topic of, actualism.

the example that was given... has confused me so much that it's given me a new hatred for philosphy. so if anyone understands this, and can explain it, or it you want to explain it another way, i would greatly appreciate your help.

To understand the thesis of actualism, consider the following example. Imagine a race of beings -- call them ?Aliens? -- that is very different from any life-form that actually exists anywhere in the universe; different enough, in fact, that no actually existing thing could have been an Alien, any more than a given gorilla could have been a fruitfly. Now, even though there are no Aliens, it seems intuitively true that there could have been such things. After all, life could have evolved very differently than the way it did in fact, differently enough, at least, that other kinds of things might have existed. So why is it true that there could have been Aliens when in fact there are none, and when, moreover, nothing that actually exists could have been an Alien?

link

 

[Orsorum]

Probability.

 

[her209]

Means that alien is a relative term. Ie, we could say gorillas are aliens because they are different from us (assuming we didn't evolve from them).

In actuality

 

[xyyz]

hmmm... i guess what's really throwing me off is the following:

...in fact, that no actually existing thing could have been an Alien, any more than a given gorilla could have been a fruitfly.

i dont get this... any more thana given gorilla could have been a fruitly... how does this example work exactly?